Update, May 20, 2026: This article has been updated to include comments by a highly placed Taiwanese source.
U.S. President Donald Trump did not make any public comments on Taiwan during his recent visit to China, but later warned against Taiwan declaring formal independence during an interview with Fox News after returning from Beijing on May 15. Analysts said the remarks appeared aimed at managing tensions with Beijing while preserving U.S. strategic flexibility.
Trump made the comments during a sit-down interview with host Bret Baier, who asked about his one-on-one meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and its implications for global geopolitics.
Trump notably avoided making public remarks on Taiwan while in Beijing, despite Xi openly warning the United States on the issue during the visit. When reporters in Beijing asked whether the U.S. would defend Taiwan in the event of a Communist Chinese attack, Trump replied, “I said I don’t talk about that.”
Notably, Trump described pending arms sales to Taiwan as a “very good negotiating chip for us,” raising concerns that the president could compromise the island’s security and sovereignty in talks with the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
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The communist-run PRC claims Taiwan as a rightful part of its territory. Taiwan, a democracy of about 23 million, is formally known as the Republic of China (ROC), which governed most of the country until its defeat on the mainland by the communist forces in 1949.
Talking about Xi’s remarks during their meetings, Trump said that for Beijing, Taiwan is the central issue in U.S.–China relations.
Trump’s remarks seen as calibrated
When asked by Baier whether people in Taiwan should feel safe following the meeting, Trump said, “Neutral. This has been going on for years.”
“Nothing’s changed. I will say this: I’m not looking to have somebody go independent. And, you know, we’re supposed to travel 9,500 miles to fight a war. I’m not looking for that. I want them to cool down. I want China to cool down.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, meanwhile, during an interview with NBC News in Beijing, reiterating that Washington’s position on Taiwan had not changed.
“From our perspective, any forced change in the status quo and the situation that’s there now would be bad for both countries,” Rubio said.
With Taiwan increasingly central to tensions between Washington and Beijing, Trump’s comments have drawn close scrutiny from geopolitical analysts.
A highly placed Taiwanese source surnamed Liu who spoke with Vision Times on condition of anonymity said that the “independence” mentioned by Trump refers to Taiwan attempting to gain formal international acknowledgement as a sovereign country separate from the notion of “one China,” rather than its current state of de facto statehood.
The Taiwanese government has since the 1990s described itself as an already-independent country, namely the “Republic of China (Taiwan).”
“When Trump said that he was against Taiwan Independence, what he meant was being against ‘de jure independence,’ that Taiwan shouldn’t ‘declare independence again,'” Liu said.
“The fact that the U.S. has a representative in Taipei, military advisors in Taiwan, and is providing various weapons to Taiwan, means that the U.S. is not against ‘de facto independence.’ This has always been the position of the U.S., it has not been changed in this meeting [with Xi],” he added.
Others said that Trump’s remarks reflected an effort to protect U.S. interests while avoiding further escalation with the PRC.
“The American conflict with Iran is viewed as a potential reason behind this deceptive statement by President Trump to keep the Chinese guessing in a bid to keep Taiwan and the region peaceful and stable,” Pooran Pandey, a 2025 fellow at Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told Vision Times
Roger Chifeng Liu, a geopolitical analyst and professor at National Sun Yat-sen University in Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan, said Trump’s refusal to directly address Taiwan while in Beijing reflected unresolved divisions within the administration.
“This is an unusually direct evasion for a sitting U.S. president on this question, reflecting that the West Wing’s handling of the issue remains internally contested,” Liu wrote in a LinkedIn analysis published Monday, May 18.
Liu said Trump’s evasiveness, combined with Xi’s direct warning on Taiwan, suggested that both sides used “ceremonial warmth to mask structural wariness.”
“This is not a real reconciliation. It is a carefully managed non-breakdown.”
Courtney Donovan Smith, a columnist with the Taipei Times, told Vision Times that Trump’s remarks echoed Washington’s long-standing policy of “strategic ambiguity” on Taiwan.
“Where they left open the question of whether the U.S. would intervene militarily in a war to deter Taipei from ‘declaring independence’ on the one hand, and to deter Beijing from going to war on the other — with the aim of preserving the status quo,” Smith said.
‘New contestation’
Analysts said Xi’s public warning to Washington over Taiwan during the summit appeared intended to increase psychological pressure on the United States.
“China is conscious of the USA’s weakening of power and influence as a global leader during ongoing conflict with Iran and its inability to seek any solution with Russia in the Ukraine war and rapture in transatlantic alliance,” Pandey said.
Pandey also noted that U.S. support for Taiwan is grounded in the Taiwan Relations Act, signed into law by President Jimmy Carter on April 10, 1979.
“It is in this context that Xi’s statement on Taiwan during the summit goes far beyond geopolitics and sits at the core of Chinese warmongering tactics of winning without firing a shot,” he said.
Smith said Beijing has long assumed that the United States would intervene militarily if the PRC invaded Taiwan, and argued the latest messaging should be viewed in that context.
“Trump referred to Xi talking his ear off on the subject of Taiwan, and clearly it left some impression on him,” Smith said.
Liu described the recent Trump-Xi summit as the start of “a new round of contestation” between Washington and Beijing.
He noted that the tariff framework agreed upon during the Trump-Xi summit in Busan in October 2025 remains in effect until Nov. 10, 2026. Trump has reduced fentanyl-related tariffs on Chinese goods from 20 percent to 10 percent, and has invited Xi to Washington later this year, though no date has been finalized.
Liu said the next several months would be a critical test for the bilateral relationship.
“A small move by either side on technology, arms sales, Southeast Asia, or Indo-Pacific multilateral issues could push the current non-breakdown into stalemate or fresh escalation,” he said.
“The end of the ‘China card’ era requires a new equilibrium — sustained dialogue inside sustained rivalry.”
Taiwan responds to Trump remarks
Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te responded to Trump’s warning in a Facebook post Sunday, May 17, saying Taiwan would not be “sacrificed or traded.”
Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs also said May 16 that there was no change in U.S. policy:
“The U.S. long-standing policy toward Taiwan remains unchanged. This position has been reaffirmed by President Donald Trump.”
“It is self-evident that the ROC (Taiwan) is a sovereign democratic country. Beijing has no right to claim jurisdiction over Taiwan. The government of Taiwan will continue to deepen cooperation with the United States, maintain peace through strength, and ensure that the security and stability of the Taiwan Strait are not threatened or undermined,” the ministry said.
Smith noted that Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party has maintained since 1999 that Taiwan is already independent under the name Republic of China, making a formal declaration of independence unnecessary.
He described the older formulation of “declaring independence” while preserving the status quo as increasingly outdated.
“Taipei has shown zero interest in eliminating ROC symbols and constitution, and has been consistent in working to preserve the status quo in the face of efforts by the CCP to unilaterally change it,” Smith said.
Liu said Lai’s response reaffirmed that Taiwan is “a sovereign, independent, democratic country whose sovereignty cannot be violated or annexed,” while also emphasizing that U.S. arms sales are rooted in the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act.
Liu also pointed to Trump’s remarks after the summit that he had placed a $1.2 billion Taiwan arms package “on hold for now” while keeping a separate $1.4 billion package in “abeyance,” while adding that “it depends on China.”
“More damaging still, in [the] Fox News interview Trump described Taiwan arms sales directly as ‘a very good negotiating chip for us, frankly,’” Liu said.
“This is not an analyst’s interpretation — it is a sitting U.S. president openly acknowledging that strategic commitments to Taiwan are being used as leverage against Beijing.”
